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WHEN it comes to improving prisons, Peter Henderson isn't interested in higher fences or more CCTV cameras.

He's more focused on developing ways to rehabilitate inmates to enhance their opportunity for post-release employment.

It's this attitude that makes him an ideal person to run the state's first 'earn and learn' prison facility.

Mr Henderson has been appointed to head the Borallon Training and Correctional Centre, which is due to reopen early next year.

The facility, which closed in 2012, was recommissioned in an attempt to deal with overcrowding in the corrections system.

As general manager of the prison Mr Henderson said he was looking forward to working in a centre that focused on rehabilitation.

Borallon Correctional Centre. Photo ContributedContributed

He said the facility would allow prisoners to have employment history, work history and education history before they were released.

"The majority of people who end up in jail are eventually released back into our communities, living in our neighbourhoods," he said. "I think it's a fundamental role of the correctional services to rehabilitate people while they are incarcerated."

Mr Henderson said the centre was going through a co-design process with a number of key state colleges to develop a model that would be fundamentally different to every other correctional centre in Queensland.

"It will be the investment in the prisoners that will be the big difference here," he said.

The prison will accommodate 492 male prisoners. Mr Henderson said some of the prisoners will be hand-picked, while others will go through an application process.

The facility will also bring more than 200 jobs to the Ipswich area.

Mr Henderson has spent 22 years in corrections and was involved in the commissioning of four jails in New Zealand.